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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/26724025">Boy Hostage</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/2ndtolastrow/pseuds/2ndtolastrow'>2ndtolastrow</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>in control’verse [1]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Batman (Comics), DCU (Comics), Super Sons (Comics), Superman (Comics)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Background jewish!kents, Fluff and Angst, Functionally a standalone, Gen, Hostage Situations, League!Damian, Perceived Power Imbalance, minor appearances by clark and lois, much discussion of batman, sometimes redemption comes in the form of annoying ten year olds</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-09-30</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-09-30</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 08:41:01</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>10,013</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/26724025</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/2ndtolastrow/pseuds/2ndtolastrow</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>In a world where Damian was never sent to live with his father, the League is hired to abduct the son of prominent journalist Lois Lane, Jon Kent. (Or: Jon decides to make friends with a ninja.)</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Jonathan Samuel Kent &amp; Damian Wayne</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>in control’verse [1]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1952833</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>23</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>183</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Boy Hostage</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>warnings:<br/>not quite starvation but deliberate underfeeding<br/>perceived power imbalance because like half of this fic is Jon rolling with being held hostage<br/>general League warnings for violence/indoctrination and children, though nothing graphic</p><p>Some other notes:<br/>LA is a terrible city and I hate it; roll of thunder was sixth grade reading for me, so I figured it’d be fine for fifth grade!jon; if i’ve fucked anything up re: Judaism please tell me, I’m not Jewish but I am sorry; lazarus lane is, infact, an actual comic book character; and, finally, the bits about Lois at the start aren’t meant to be some weird sexist thing. The thing about being the kind of journalist who exposes people in power, the kind of journalist who I think of Lois as being, is that it ends with two bullets in your head being ruled a suicide. So.</p><p>EDIT: 12/9/20, cleaned up spacing, and fixed like… one (1) typo</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>It’s a bad contract, and all of them know it. <em>Everybody</em> knows that half the reason that Lois Lane hasn’t been killed by Lex Luthor or the CIA or someone like that is because Superman follows wherever she goes. </p><p>So kidnapping her kid? Probably not going to get her to quiet down about whatever it is the client wants her to quiet down about. Probably going to end with Superman smashing down the doors, flying in with his cape waving in the breeze, backlit like it’s a goddamn movie set, looking exactly like the bringer of Truth, Justice, and the American Way.</p><p>And it isn’t as though they’re the League of <em>Kidnappers</em>.</p><p>So it’s a bad contract, but it’s good money, a <em>lot</em> of good money, and they were paid in advance, so here they are in a lead-plated warehouse in the Suicide Slum of Metropolis with one Jonathan Samuel Kent tied to a chair. </p><p>And if Damian didn’t already believe in his grandfather’s cause, this place would be enough.</p><p>“Sooooo,” Kent says, wiggling against his bonds, and then bouncing up straight. “Do you guys sleep?”</p><p>Damian eyes the knots warily, but they look to be holding… <em>satisfactorily</em>.</p><p>“Yes? No?” He pauses, frowning. “If you don’t talk, I know a little bit of Sign? I was just wondering, because, like, it’s totally weird if you guys don’t but I have a friend who says that ninjas don’t sleep, and this is probably the only opportunity I’m gonna get to ask, so—“</p><p>Something pulses in Damian’s head. Amir twitches. He scowls, looking at where Kent is still rambling.</p><p>A gag. He’s getting a gag.</p><p><br/>
<br/>
</p><p>When he returns from his noon meal, Kent has somehow removed the gag. He scowls at Amir, who shrugs as though to say, ‘what-can-you-do?’ This is not an acceptable answer.</p><p>“Was that your lunch break?” Kent asks.</p><p>Damian scowls at him too.</p><p>“…I’m gonna take that as a ‘yes,’” he says, grinning. “Do I get lunch?”</p><p>“No,” Damian tells him, and Kent, thankfully, deflates.</p><p>“Aw, man,” he says, and the beginnings of the pulsing headache Damian had felt earlier returns. He isn’t shutting up. “I get <em>super</em> hungry. My dad says I get it from him!”</p><p>Damian debates returning to the rafters, where Kent can’t see him.</p><p>“Hey!” Kent says, interrupting himself, and wiggling in a motion barely cut off by the ropes. He does successfully jump the chair about a foot in the air though. Which he shouldn’t be able to do. Damian adds another grievance to the list of things he’ll be punishing Amir for.</p><p>“You <em>can</em> talk!” he accuses.</p><p>“Tt.” Damian rolls his eyes. “Imbecile.”</p><p>Kent frowns at him. “Just because you’re a kidnapping ninja doesn’t mean you have to be <em>mean</em>.”</p><p>“Assassin,” Damian corrects, and heads for the rafters.</p><p><br/>
<br/>
</p><p>At the end of the first day, they take a photograph. </p><p>Despite the unkempt nature of his hair, the crack spiderwebbing across the left lens of his glasses, the fine coating of dust he’s received, and the fact that he is <em>tied to a chair</em> in <em>an abandoned warehouse,</em> Kent’s spirits are far too high for the photograph to be an effective ransom note.</p><p>Damian scowls at it, and decides that they will have to rely on Lane’s maternal instinct.</p><p>Not that he expected this to succeed, or even to last as long as it has.</p><p>That doesn’t mean he won’t give it his all.</p><p>Shut up.</p><p>Idiot.</p><p><br/>
<br/>
</p><p>Kent wakes with the dawn. It’s odd, and it engenders him the tiniest amount of respect from Damian. For all his many faults, Kent is, at least, not a layabout.</p><p>And then he opens his mouth again. “So, how old are you?”</p><p>Damian’s headache pulses. He thinks about hitting Kent across the face, just to shut him up. Then he thinks about Superman hitting <em>him</em> across the face, and he decides against it. “Old enough.”</p><p>“That totally makes you sound like a kid,” Kent tells him. “Ten?” </p><p>“<em>No</em>,” Damian snarls, shifting in his crouched perch.</p><p>“But you’re, like, shorter than <em>me</em>,” Kent says, craning his neck to look at Damian squintily, as though he has any right to indignance.</p><p>“I am <em>not,</em>” Damian snaps, a hot flush rushing to his cheeks. He is the product of the Bat and the Heir to the Demon, and he is not—</p><p>“Prove it,” Kent challenges, eyes flashing and grin widening.</p><p>“As though I would,” Damian replies. “How foolish do you think I am?”</p><p>His brows come together, wrinkling his face in an ugly way. “What do y—Oh! You’d have to untie me.”</p><p>“And a freed hostage is of no use,” Damian finishes. “Your escape attempt was obvious.”</p><p>Kent shrugs. “I mean, I kinda just wanted to make friends. How old <em>are</em> you, anyway?”</p><p>“No,” Damian replies.</p><p><br/>
<br/>
</p><p>“So, like, could we do a selfie?” Kent asks, as they set up the tripod for the second time.</p><p>Sooraya chokes.</p><p>Damian scowls at her, then at Kent. There might be a scarf covering that half of his face, but he knows both of them see it.</p><p>“Is that a yes?” Kent asks hopefully, pulling it from his boundless well of optimistic stupidity. </p><p>“<em>No</em>.”</p><p>Damian stalks over, grabbing Kent by the hair and yanking his head back, shaking him around so he might successfully look at least somewhat <em>dazed</em>, honestly. Two days with barely any water and a single meal haven’t seemed to get to him yet at all.</p><p>He releases him with a jerk, and Kent has the <em>audacity</em> to laugh. </p><p>“Whoa!” His hands splay out at his sides, like he’s trying to catch his balance. He looks up at Damian almost pleadingly, and for a second, Damian thinks Kent has finally realized what’s going on here. Then he opens his mouth. </p><p>“Could you fix my glasses?” he asks, crooked grin twisting even more so when set against the glasses hanging off his face.</p><p>Damian sighs.</p><p><br/>
<br/>
</p><p>“So,” is how Kent begins his third set of questions, as the first two, “how old are you?”</p><p>“Older than you,” he snaps, dropping down from the rafters.</p><p>“Like, a teenager?” Kent asks. “Because you can’t be that old, or you wouldn’t be so short.”</p><p>“Shut up and eat your bread,” Damian tells him, shoving it in Kent’s mouth.</p><p>He stares as he chews, and Damian, with a sinking feeling, realizes Kent would absolutely talk with food in his mouth, and that he is absolutely not letting this go.</p><p>“Thirteen.”</p><p>“What?” Kent sprays half-chewed bread and crumbs across the room. Damian scowls. “You’re a <em>kid</em>?” </p><p>“Thirteen is adulthood in many cultures,” Damian tells him, that hot flush creeping up his cheeks again.</p><p>Kent sputters for a moment, staring. “Wha—li—<em>which ones?</em>”</p><p>And the file had said he was Jewish. “Have you never been to a Bat Mitzvah?”</p><p>He starts choking again.</p><p><br/>
<br/>
</p><p>“What’s your favorite color?” Kent asks, and Damian thinks about screaming.</p><p>It is, at the very least, better than the singing. He’s probably never going to get “The Song that Never Ends” out of his head. (He cuts a subtle glare at Amir for taking his meal then, and forcing Damian to listen to that.)</p><p>“What are you,” he replies, “five?”</p><p>“Wait.” Kent rocks back, eyes finding him with unerring accuracy. “You don’t have a favorite color?”</p><p>Damian narrows his eyes. “It would be childish.”</p><p>“Well, yeah!” Kent spasms against his bonds in that way he does, the one that Damian has come to realize is cut-off gesticulation. “You’re a <em>kid</em>.”</p><p>“<em>You</em>,” Damian corrects, ”are a kid. I am an assassin.”</p><p>Kent goes very, very quiet at that. It’s possibly the longest Damian has ever managed to shut him up. His face crumples up, forming an expression that Damian can’t quite identify. (It looks almost like <em> pity, </em> but that can’t—)</p><p>Finally, he says, in a soft voice, “You’re still a kid.”</p><p>“Tt.”</p><p>“My favorite’s blue. Or maybe red.” Kent bounces. “Or maybe yellow, like Superman!”</p><p>Damian rolls his eyes.</p><p>“Do you have a favorite su—oh. You wouldn’t, huh?” Kent looks… thoughtful, if exaggeratedly so. “Mine’s—“</p><p>“Superman.” Damian cuts him off.</p><p>Kent laughs. “Kinda predictable, huh? I think you’d like Batman, if it weren’t for the whole…” Another attempted gesture. “You’re a lot like him, you know?”</p><p>Damian says nothing at all.</p><p><br/>
<br/>
</p><p>In the third picture, Kent looks almost like a real hostage. His cheeks are starting to hollow, underneath the puppy fat. There are thicker smudges of dirt on his face and clothes, and his mess of hair is growing greasy.</p><p>Damian does <em>not</em> feel anything looking at it.</p><p>He doesn’t!</p><p><br/>
<br/>
</p><p>He slips out of the warehouse around midnight, when Kent is fast asleep, no longer even sleep-talking. He’s dressed in civilian clothing, an old jacket and a pair of jeans.</p><p>Tonight, there’s no one he needs to be, so he is no one.</p><p>He leaves the slums for the nicer part of town, following the garish LexCorp sign plastered in neon on the main building, a skyscraper that fills him with instinctive disgust.</p><p>It isn’t hard to find a hotel, and it’s barely any more work to find the service entrance. Damian slips in without anyone seeing him, and it leaves him disgusted by the blindness of the people around him.</p><p>He raids the first floor ice machine. No one says a word as he walks right out the front door, carrying a bucketful of ice.</p><p>They’re all just mindless drones.</p><p>He makes his way back at the same pace, if not faster now that he knows his path. The streets of Metropolis aren’t empty, even at night, but the flush of people is thinned to the point where there’s room to breathe. The air is thick with smog here, in a way that would make Mother laugh and share a story about Los Angeles in the nineteen-nineties and make Grandfather scowl and talk about how the Earth would one day be renewed.</p><p>(Sometimes, Damian imagines Los Angeles. Not the Los Angeles of his missions, but the Los Angeles of his mother’s stories, a cobbled together city made of orange skies and Thai restaurants, with pubs from her time at Oxford and the library she had known in Dubai.</p><p>This Los Angeles is a secret thing, a dream thing, and he knows he is not supposed to have it.)</p><p>There is a thin layer of water at the bottom of the bucket when he lets himself back into the warehouse, and he sets it in front of Kent’s chair—lets himself imagine, just for a moment, Kent waking with a jerk and pitching forward into it.</p><p>Then he slips away again, to lose his hoodie and jeans and lay down on his mat and wait for sunrise.</p><p><br/>
<br/>
</p><p>An accusatory “Hey!” is Kent’s greeting, which is at least preferable to the inquisitive “Sooooo…” that is his habit. “What’s with the bucket?”</p><p>Damian smirks as he strides forward, picks up the bucket, and, not breaking his stride, drenches Kent.</p><p>Kent coughs and sputters as the water streams down his face, probably chilling him to the bone.</p><p>Damian removes his glasses with a precise movement, and wipes them on his shirt, placing them back on the bridge of Kent’s nose. “You were starting to stink.”</p><p>“Yeah, well, you’re the ones who won’t let me shower!” Kent yells, teeth beginning to chatter. He jerks enthusiastically in his chair. “I have to pee in a bucket!”</p><p>Damian smirks harder. “This is <em>nothing</em>,” he says, surprised at the sudden vehemence in his voice. He forces himself to pause for the barest moment, trying to regain control. “If we wanted you hurt, you’d be hurt.”</p><p>But Kent is no assassin, he is nothing but a soft child, and so a bucket of cold water and a few days tied to a chair are more than has ever had. He is <em>nothing</em>.</p><p>Damian turns away, and leaves at a brisk pace. He needs to break his fast.</p><p><br/>
<br/>
</p><p>There’s a restaurant a few blocks away from the warehouse—too close for it to be a safe place to be, really—run by a Yemeni woman. He’d heard her shouting at a stray cat in the alley the second night they were here.</p><p>He finds himself inside, breathing slowly and trying to regain some composure in a place that almost seems like home. He orders in Lebanese Arabic, lets himself sound gentle and soft, ducks his head in pretend embarrassment when she asks if he’s skipping class.</p><p>“<em>It’s hard,</em>” he lies. “<em>I’m new and… I’m not…</em>”</p><p>She smiles, soft, and it almost makes her look like his mother—not nearly as beautiful, of course, but there’s a resemblance. “<em>I won’t tell, today.</em>”</p><p>His mother would’ve said he was better than any of the other students and that he should simply enter and <em>succeed</em>. Instead, he eats breakfast and breathes and doesn’t think about Jon Kent.</p><p><br/>
<br/>
</p><p>He goes back, settles into the rafters and pulls his legs up under him and leans back against a support beam to stare at the wall. He is the Son of the Bat, he is the Grandson of the Demon, he is Damian, and he is in control.</p><p>He is in control.</p><p>“So,” Kent starts, and Damian throws his shoe at him.</p><p><br/>
<br/>
</p><p>He has to get his shoe later, some odd flush of embarrassment at doing something so childish still clinging to him. Kent doesn’t say anything, even when Damian is hovering high out of sight and Amir is giving him lunch. </p><p>He doesn’t know why—he is the Son of—he is <em>in control</em>.</p><p><br/>
<br/>
</p><p>“So,” Kent starts, hesitating, and Damian tells himself he is feeling satisfaction. “Do you have a favorite color yet?”</p><p>“Tt.”</p><p><br/>
<br/>
</p><p>The picture they take on the fourth day is satisfactorily bedraggled, if oddly clean-looking. Kent puts on a grit-toothed smile for the camera, and Damian refrains from telling him how much worse it makes him look, if only because that’s what they want.</p><p>He has no reason not to shove it into Kent’s face afterward, though.</p><p>He doesn’t.</p><p><br/>
<br/>
</p><p>A thunderstorm starts in the early morning, and Kent wakes with it. Damian, who had not fallen asleep, watches Kent cry out as rain begins to pound at the roof with a vengeance. He is disoriented as he wakes, crying out for his father, for his mother.</p><p>The tin-and-lead roof rattles, echoing and increasing the sound in strange ways.</p><p>Nothing but sound, he thinks, watching Kent pant heavily, eyes still wild.</p><p>“It is a storm,” he calls.</p><p>Kent’s head jerks up, gaze meeting his as though he can actually <em> see </em> Damian. His eyes are blue and shocking, intense, with a depth that is almost inhuman. His mouth is still open as his chest heaves raggedly.</p><p>Thunder rolls, and Damian closes his eyes, taking an odd comfort in the richness of the sound, low and rumbling.</p><p>“A storm,” Kent repeats, barely audible over the rain. “Just a storm.”</p><p>Damian nods, because even though Kent <em> can’t </em> see him, it seems enough like he can to make it easy to forget.</p><p>“A storm.”</p><p><br/>
<br/>
</p><p>The rain doesn’t stop for hours, and Damian forces Amir to fetch meals for everyone—Maha is Muslim, so he tells him to just make it all halal. She and Sooraya will probably share anyway.</p><p>Amir struggles back in, arms full of food and attempting to balance an umbrella at the same time, and Damian’s lips quirk up slightly. Until he figures out <em> his </em> lunch has gotten soggy, at which point they have a problem.</p><p>Kent eats his with one of those odd, thoughtful looks on his face. They never tend to end well. </p><p>“What?” Damian snaps, and he swallows with a <em>disgusting</em> gulp.</p><p>“I was wondering—“</p><p>“Tt.”</p><p>“Fine.” Kent glares at him. “I won’t ask.”</p><p>Damian rolls his eyes. As though Kent will be able to resist. He slips back into the rafters, where the rain rattles loud and comforting, and settles against what is becoming <em>his</em> beam.</p><p>It’s not ten minutes before Kent bursts out with “What’s your name?”</p><p>Damian looks down at him, startled.</p><p>Kent is staring back up at him with one of those pin-point, precise stares. “I, uh, I’ve kinda been calling you ‘Ninja Kid’ in my head this whole time and it’s getting pretty awkward because it’s been nearly a week.”</p><p>It is an entirely terrible idea to tell Jonathan Samuel Kent his name. It would be completely unprofessional. </p><p>“Damian.” He pauses. “And I’m not a <em>kid</em>.”</p><p><br/>
<br/>
</p><p>He dreams of Los Angeles, before he falls asleep that night. There is a small Yemeni restaurant now, and an empty ice-bucket. The night sky, he decides, is not burnt orange, but the glowing blue-gray of Metropolis’s light-polluted hell.</p><p><br/>
<br/>
</p><p>The sixth day dawns gray and damp, chill dripping in and down to the bones. Damian has swum the Channel and spent weeks straight in the Arctic. He has endured before, and he will endure long after. This is nothing.</p><p>Kent shivers and shakes in his seat, twisting uncomfortably.</p><p>(There is a sound, almost like the ropes tearing. But that would be impossible.)</p><p>He settles on the lower perch, today, to get a better view of him.</p><p>Kent’s hair is clearly thick with grease now, and his school uniform is wrinkled and creased. (There is a moment, when his head twists just right and some play of light catches on his face, where Damian’s fingers itch for his pencils. But then he moves again, and the thought is gone.)</p><p>“Hey, Damian?” he asks, twisting to look at him head on.</p><p>Damian scowls, hoping to shut him up.</p><p>Kent smiles, wider and yellower than it was when they took him. “Do you have a favorite color yet?”</p><p>Damian nearly throws his shoe again.</p><p><br/>
<br/>
</p><p>Maha finds them a newspaper with a nice, big photograph of Kent in it, the bold headline declaring “LOCAL BOY MISSING!” Damian wonders how many people go missing in Metropolis every day.</p><p><br/>
<br/>
</p><p>“Have you ever had ice cream?” Kent asks, when Damian comes back from getting his noon meal.</p><p>“Tt.” Damian scowls at nothing as he leaps up to settle in. “You are craving <em> that</em>?”</p><p>“Nah,” Kent replies, his Midwestern drawl stretching the single syllable out for far longer than it warrants. “It’s just cold.”</p><p>Damian doesn’t roll his eyes. “Yes. It was disgusting and overly sweet.”</p><p>“I should take you for ice cream,” Kent says, eyes distant. “There’s a place back home that does it right—makes it all by hand. Uh, I mean in Smallville.”</p><p>“I doubt we will be seeing each other anywhere <em>near</em> Kansas,” Damian replies. “I doubt I will see you at all after your mother makes her decision.”</p><p>“Wait.” Kent looks up at him again, face wrinkling. “You took me because of my mom?”</p><p>“Your father is better known as a mystery novelist than a second-rate journalist,” Damian tells him flatly, ignoring how he puffs up. “Why else would we hold you hostage?”</p><p>“I dunno.” Kent frowns. “I, um, guess I just didn’t think about it.”</p><p><br/>
<br/>
</p><p>Damian goes out to fill the bucket again before they take the sixth photograph. He can’t fill it with ice this time, because they need it within the hour, so he ends up breaking into a restaurant.</p><p>He also makes a short detour to a drug store.</p><p>Then he returns, and shrugs off the old jacket, and shoves a toothbrush into Amir’s hand, and throws the bucket over Kent’s head. </p><p>“His breath was starting to become intolerable,” he mutters, while Kent is still spluttering and disoriented.</p><p>Amir blinks, and nods, and Damian walks over and wipes down Kent’s glasses briskly. </p><p>The photograph looks like Kent is more amused than distressed, but Damian thinks the context will do most of the work in changing that for them.</p><p><br/>
<br/>
</p><p>The seventh morning brings another storm, rains drenching the city until its gutters overflow and the puddles at the street’s edge are more like creeks, running nearly level with the curb.</p><p>Maha, Sooraya, and Amir spent the previous night piled together, while he kept watch.</p><p>Damian, in turn, sleeps through half the morning, letting the rhythm of the rain comfort him. He gets up properly before three hours have passed, washes and dresses with efficiency.</p><p>When he slips up into the rafters, he finds breakfast already waiting for him.</p><p><br/>
<br/>
</p><p>“What do you do for fun?” Kent asks.</p><p>Damian stares at him.</p><p>“You know, like a hobby?” Kent presses, tilting his head as far back he can. His neck pops.</p><p>“I do not do things for fun,” Damian replies, knowing his voice is stiffening. “I am the Heir to the Demon.”</p><p>“Oh,” Kent says. “I was busy with chores a lot too, when we lived on the farm. But I like kickball! And reading comics!”</p><p>Inanely, he smiles.</p><p>“Comics?” Damian asks, surprise threading through him. “The classics?”</p><p>“Well, duh,” Kent says, grin widening.</p><p>“That’s rather more than I expected of you,” Damian replies. “I prefer tragic works, but if you’d like to talk about—“</p><p>“No,” Kent interrupts. “<em>Comics</em>. Like the X-Men? Or Black Widow?”</p><p>“Ah.” Damian scowls. “That does seem more… your speed.”</p><p>“Hey!”</p><p><br/>
<br/>
</p><p>For their seventh photograph, Kent has successfully gained a new smudge of dirt across his forehead. No one will explain how.</p><p>Damian, who goes through the work of drenching him with water every few days, is insulted. Especially when Maha starts <em>giggling</em>. (It's silent, but he <em>knows</em> what the shaking of her shoulders means.)</p><p>He scowls at them all, and shoves the paper they’d gotten the day before to Kent’s hands, forcing him to hold it up for the camera.</p><p>He looks almost like he’s actually in distress, this time.</p><p><br/>
<br/>
</p><p>Damian goes up onto the roof that night, opening the umbrella over his head and staring out at the rain-soaked streets, at the way light reflects off of them in great streaks of neon.</p><p>There are no stars here, and he knows his grandfather would tell him that it needs to end and his mother would tell him the tale of Orion and Artemis, but he does not know what his father would say. There must not be stars in Gotham, either, he thinks. There cannot be, not in Gotham.</p><p>He watches the skyscrapers, not distant enough to keep him from feeling like they’re closing in over his head.</p><p>The LexCorp sign flickers, and he smiles.</p><p><br/>
<br/>
</p><p>It is still raining on the eighth day, and the chill feels almost like it’s a part of Damian, now.</p><p>“Do you have a favorite color yet?” Kent asks brightly, looking up at him.</p><p>Damian thinks, very suddenly, of streetlights and rain on asphalt. <em>Blue</em>, he thinks, <em>white</em>.</p><p>“No,” he says, pretending like he believes it. He swallows, confused by the lump in his throat and the way his heartbeat is pounding in his ears. “I’m not a child.”</p><p>“Uh-huh.” Kent grins that crooked grin up at him again. “Mine’s still yellow. Maybe.”</p><p>Damian rolls his eyes and ducks out of sight—or, what would be out of sight if it weren’t for the fact that the shadows have already hidden the rafters anyway. He leans back against the beam and breathes, slowing his heartbeat until it is at a reasonable volume and tempo.</p><p><em>Blue</em>, he thinks, <em>white</em>.</p><p>He thinks of his sword through Kent’s chest and his knife at Kent’s throat and throwing stars in Kent’s back and—He is the Son of the Bat, he is the Grandson of the Demon, he is Damian, and he is in control.</p><p>He is in control.</p><p><br/>
<br/>
</p><p>The rain stops around noon, and Damian curls up on his mat, wishing for the rhythmic pattering of it to help him sleep. Usually he has no trouble.</p><p>He closes his eyes and imagines—Gotham. The skies are burnt orange and the streets shine with streetlights and rain. His mother’s Thai restaurant stands next to the storefront of the Yemeni one he visited before. There is a comic book store next to the library, and… an art supply store, pencils and watercolors in the windows.</p><p>His father’s symbol hangs high in the sky, and Damian stares up at it with wonder.</p><p>His heart is in his throat again, and he does not understand. <em> I think you’d like Batman. </em></p><p><br/>
<br/>
</p><p>The clouds fade to pale gray as the afternoon comes to full, and Damian finds himself slipping out onto the streets once more.</p><p>He finds himself back at the restaurant, slipping to a table in the corner. Saltah is normally lunch, but he ends up with a bowl of it anyway.</p><p>“You are doing better?” the woman asks him, <em>‘r’</em>s rolling in a way that they never do here. She makes it half a question, half an assurance, and he wonders that she would know a lie better than the truth.</p><p>“Yes,” he replies. “Thank you.”</p><p><br/>
<br/>
</p><p>Kent is ratty and disgusting again, so Damian makes a note to find him another ice bucket. At least, he supposes, his teeth are clean.</p><p>“Damian?” he calls, and Damian wishes he’d never given Kent his name.</p><p>“What?”</p><p>“What day of the week is it?” Kent’s voice is small, and he looks… deflated. Tired. </p><p>Damian pauses for a moment, debating. “…Sunday.”</p><p>“Okay,” Kent says. Then, more brightly, “School starts again tomorrow! It’s gonna suck to have to catch up on all the homework I missed.”</p><p>Damian thinks about the fact that this was supposed to end last Sunday, with Superman saving the day, and that if it doesn’t go the way the client wants it to, Kent will never go to school again.</p><p>He scoffs and says, “They’re probably all just as stupid as you are, aren’t they?”</p><p><br/>
<br/>
</p><p>Kent pulls out his grit-toothed smile again for the eighth photograph. He is greasy and his clothes are wrinkled, but his teeth are clean.</p><p>Damian thinks that Lois Lane is the sort of person who would notice a detail like that.</p><p><br/>
<br/>
</p><p>He pulls on the jeans again as he slips out into the night. The rain hasn’t yet drained from the streets, and so he avoids puddles everywhere he goes. Kent, he thinks, would make a game of it, would splash into the puddles and soak himself and everyone around him as he did.</p><p>Damian is no one tonight, so he could be Jon Kent. But he isn’t, so he walks with precision and with stealth and fills up his ice bucket and walks out the door, and doesn’t turn around to say a bright goodbye to the woman at the front desk.</p><p>He walks back out onto the street and looks up and up and up until he is looking at the LexCorp sign, a monument to hubris that will one day be shattered at his grandfather’s hands.</p><p>His mother once worked at LexCorp. Once <em>ran</em> LexCorp. He’s never known why she left.</p><p>He turns, and walks back to the warehouse.</p><p>He’s three blocks away when the sky opens up, and rain begins to come down in great sheets, soaking through his clothes and overfilling the bucket and obscuring his vision. He walks back, cold and wet sliding against his skin until he can barely feel it. He is the Son of the Bat, he is the Grandson of the Demon, and he endures.</p><p>He puts the bucket in front of Kent. He’s sleeping still, despite the crash of rain on the roof.</p><p>He slips out to strip down, pulls on dry clothes and spreads the wet ones out so they won’t grow moldy. He turns to his sleeping mat and—hesitates.</p><p><br/>
<br/>
</p><p>Damian clambers up into the rafters, leaning back against his beam and listening to the rattle of rain against the roof.</p><p>He spares a glance down at Kent. Still sleeping peacefully.</p><p>He closes his eyes and imagines Gotham.</p><p><br/>
<br/>
</p><p>The thunder wakes them both, just before dawn.</p><p>“Dad!” Kent screams, and Damian holds himself very, very still.</p><p>Ragged breathing echoes loudly, in this space, but the storm rages to the point where Kent’s is barely audible.</p><p>“It’s a storm,” he says to himself, shoving away his own night terrors, and then raises his voice, “It’s a storm!”</p><p>There’s loud thud, and Damian jerks to look at Kent. He’s jerked so hard as to tip the chair—though sadly, not into the bucket. Laying on his side, he stares up at Damian, eyes that are <em>blue blue blue</em> unfocused and electric.</p><p>“A storm,” he calls again, dropping the pitch of his voice because he needs it to sound just a bit more like a grown man’s and—</p><p>Kent finds him. His eyes snap into place, impaling Damian—no. Not violent. Kent is a photographer and, in that moment, Damian is immortalized in light.</p><p>“A storm,” he gasps, and the moment is gone.</p><p>They are silent together, for a moment, and another burst of thunder rolls through. Damian drops down to pull the chair back into place, listening as Kent’s breathing evens out.</p><p>“I’ve never met my father,” he offers. It comes out quiet, quieter than he’d intended.</p><p>Kent blinks. “You have one?”</p><p>Damian chokes on the noise of insult that rises out of his throat.</p><p>“Sorry!” Kent practically yelps it, the word unable to cross his lips fast enough. “Sorry, I just—I never thought about you having parents. I kinda thought you just—“ He makes a restricted gesture, "<em>spawned</em>.” </p><p>Damian rolls his eyes. “Humans are not an asexually reproducing species.”</p><p>Kent's face wrinkles up. “People can be—wait, no. Okay, that’s right.”</p><p>Damian resists the urge to roll his eyes again. “Of course it is. I do not spout <em>falsehoods</em>, Kent.”</p><p>They lapse back into silence for a moment.</p><p>“That, um, that sucks, though,” Kent says, awkward and stilted. “About your dad.”</p><p>“Tt.”</p><p>“Do you… do you know him?” he asks, head tilting back in an attempt at eye contact. “Like, who he is?”</p><p>“How dare you?” Damian hisses, the heat of insult boiling in his veins. “My mother is a woman of <em>dignity</em>!”</p><p>Kent begins to sputter an attempted apology, but Damian is already gone.</p><p><br/>
<br/>
</p><p>“Do you like any sweets?” Kent calls up around an hour later, when the rattling of the warehouse at the hands of the storm gets the best of him. “I mean, I get not ice cream, but chocolate? Donuts? Anything?”</p><p>“Sugar is best in fruit,” Damian replies.</p><p>“What about sorbet?” Kent asks. There isn’t enough light to see him properly, but Damian knows he’s squinting up at the rafters.</p><p>“What about apples?” Damian mocks.</p><p><br/>
<br/>
</p><p>“Do you have a favorite color yet?” Kent calls, just before dawn, and Damian startles out of his slight doze.</p><p><em>Yes</em> is on the tip of his tongue, but then he spots Maha, curled on the low perch, and it dies there.</p><p>“No,” he calls back. <em>Blue</em>, he thinks, <em>white</em>. <em>Streetlights on rain-soaked asphalt. Orange, like Los Angeles’s sky used to be. Brown, like my mother’s skin. Yellow, like you.</em></p><p><br/>
<br/>
</p><p>He naps through until noon, and wakes when the rain stops falling.</p><p>He stretches out, listening to the pop of his shoulders and crack of his elbows with annoyance. </p><p>“What’s your mom like?” Kent asks, his voice gentler than its usual exuberance. “Mine’s pretty awesome, and really smart, and she drinks a lot of coffee.”</p><p>After a moment, Damian realizes the ramble had been contained down to a practiced sentence. He swallows, searching for the words for his mother.</p><p>“Regal,” he starts. “Mother is… strong, and powerful. She is clever, and cunning. She loves with all that she is, and she will not go back on it, but she will not be stopped from her own path. Ruthless, when she must be.”</p><p>He thinks of Artemis and Orion, of Los Angeles and Oxford. Of Gotham.</p><p>“My father is from Gotham,” he says. “He is not like us, like my mother, like my grandfather. She loves him despite it—just as he is.”</p><p>“My dad isn’t like my mom either,” Kent says. “They're from two different worlds.”</p><p>Damian nods, slowly. “I suppose you could say that about mine as well.”</p><p><br/>
<br/>
</p><p>He remembers the bucket nearly an hour later, and comes to throw it over Kent with no slight pleasure taken in the act.</p><p>Glass brushes out of the broken lens onto his shirt as he cleans Kent’s glasses, and he wonders if it means something, even though he knows it means nothing.</p><p>The hours pass swiftly before it is time to take their second to last—or, maybe, <strike>hopefully,</strike> last—photograph.</p><p>He draws his sword as Sooraya sets up the tripod.</p><p>“Whoa!” Kent cries as Damian approaches with it, suddenly seeming almost like a cornered rabbit in Amir’s grip. “Why do you have a sword?”</p><p>“This is a threat,” Damian reminds him, gesturing lightly at the camera.</p><p>“You’re sure a selfie wouldn’t be threatening?” Kent asks weakly, eyeing the blade with trepidation.</p><p>Damian rolls his eyes. “It’s only your arm.”</p><p>“I could get tetanus! Or gangrene!” Kent renews his squirming, attempting to get away.</p><p>“My blades are clean.” Damian is honestly insulted at the implication. </p><p>He slashes at Kent, sudden and fast, and feels it make its mark.</p><p>Kent breaks loose to grab his arm with a cry. A clearly false cry.</p><p>“Ah!” he says, like the terrible actor he is. “My arm! It’s bleeding!”</p><p>Damian looks down at his blade. His now-chipped, blood-free blade. </p><p>“You chipped,” he grinds out, “my blade.”</p><p>“Oh, uh, no!” Kent cries. “It’s in my blood! I’ll have, uh… steel poisoning?”</p><p>Damian takes a deep breath through his nose, and gestures for Amir to get out of the way, stepping behind Kent.</p><p>“You’re a terrible liar, you idiot metahuman,” he breathes in Kent’s ear, absolutely not leaning up to do so, and raises his sword to Kent’s throat.</p><p>The camera flashes.</p><p><br/>
<br/>
</p><p>The next morning dawns clear and bright, and Damian sits, tense, in the low perch, waiting for the way this will end. </p><p>Even Kent seems to realize that something’s coming, eyes flicking around the room, and finding each of them in turn.</p><p>Amir has brought him proper food, for what might be his last meal, and if that weren’t a tip-off, nothing would be.</p><p>The sun rises, and rises, and finally reaches its peak in the sky.</p><p>With the crescendo of noon, the ceiling smashes apart, and there’s Superman, cape fluttering gently in the breeze, backlit like it’s a goddamn movie set, bringer of Truth, Justice, and the American Way.</p><p>Damian’s eyes flicker down to Kent. He’s staring up, up, up, and then he turns and he sees Damian and—in that moment, Damian could be—</p><p>The moment passes, and Damian slips away into the shadows.</p><p>There was no reason to get attached to Jonathan Samuel Kent.</p><p><br/>
<br/>
</p><p>Jon’s dad shows up to bring him home—they nearly catch Amir, but they don’t. And they definitely don’t get Damian. His mom’s waiting outside the police station and it’s just. A lot.</p><p> A lot of sound, of questions, of people asking what happened and why and who and how and he’s never been so thankful for his dad.</p><p>“Give him some room,” Dad says, voice low and confident and look-at-me, and the room turns to his command and to ask <em>him</em> who and why and how and Jon’s gonna grow up to be just like him, someday.</p><p>Eventually, the station quiets and they go home. His mom has one arm around his shoulders but the other across her own body to press on his arm, like she can’t convince herself he’s not going to pop like a balloon, and his dad holds his hand—and not the normal, so light you can barely feel it kind of hand holding his dad does. It’s so tight it nearly hurts and Jon holds on right back, because he knows it means the same thing as his mom’s hands do.</p><p>The apartment is just the same as it was, and Jon nearly cries at the sight of his bed because sleeping in a chair? Not fun.</p><p>He eats, like, a horse and a half (and a half) because FOOD. (And thank G-d for his stomach of steel because he knows he’d puke half of it up otherwise.) Then, slowly, he starts to tell his mom about favorite colors and ice cream and ice buckets and bread and his dad nearly punches a wall. (He doesn’t tell them about how Damian's dad is Batman. That’s just basic friendship. (Also, it was totally only <em>implied</em>, so…))</p><p>And then he takes a shower and sleeps in his own bed and insists on going to school the next day, because he’s fine.</p><p>And things go back to normal.</p><p><br/>
<br/>
</p><p>He misses Damian. He misses the way he’d make the noise with his tongue and the way he wouldn’t laugh and the way his heartbeat sounded when he lied.</p><p>He tells the other kids stories about the ninja kid and the grownups he rules over, and he knows his teachers think it’s an expression of trauma—I mean, hello, superhearing. It’s whatever. (There might be a tiny bit of hope that if he says ‘kid’ enough Damian will pop out of the nearest bush and hiss like a cat, but it’s not like he <em>expects</em> it.)</p><p>And then there’s a gun, and he gets in the path of the bullet, and he looks up, and there’s Damian. </p><p>And there’s Damian.</p><p>So he’s in the sniper's nest faster than the blink of an eye, than a speeding locomotive, than a speeding bullet, and there’s Damian.</p><p>Damian’s face flickers through the tiniest microexpressions of surprise and realization before it goes flat and solid as a cement wall. “Kent.”</p><p>“Hey,” he says, like there isn’t something amazing starting all over again. “You know, we never got that ice cream?”</p><p>“Tt. I’ve told you, it’s disgusting.” His lip curls, and he seems to have entirely disregarded both the gun muzzle about a millimeter away from Jon’s chest and the obliviously escaping victim, and satisfaction soars through Jon like a bird in flight.</p><p>He grins. “And I told you I was gonna take you to Smallville.”</p><p><br/>
<br/>
</p><p>Damian gets vanilla and stares at Jon’s cone of double double chocolate chocolate with open disgust. It’s kind of the best thing that’s happened to Jon in a while.</p><p>“So,” he says, sitting down on a park bench, “what’ve you been up to?”</p><p>Damian’s lips tighten, and he looks down, just slightly, at his ice cream. “You wouldn’t want to know.”</p><p>Baby steps, Jon thinks. He’s taking baby steps. </p><p>He scoots over to better make room for Damian. Damian sits, gingerly, in that cat-like way he has of doing certain things. Like he’s testing to make sure the world won’t turn to smoke and leave him falling.</p><p>“We’re reading <em>Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry</em> in class,” Jon tells him. “It’s really hard.”</p><p>Damian does that clicking thing with his tongue. “Your paltry education system should be <em>abolished</em>.”</p><p>“Yeah,” Jon says, shrugging, and takes a bite of his ice cream. “Wanna know what it’s about?”</p><p>After a moment, Damian nods.</p><p><br/>
<br/>
</p><p>“Do you have a favorite color yet?” he asks, and Damian hands him his ice cream, having decided that it isn’t for him.</p><p>“Yes,” he says. “Not that I would tell a peasant like you.”</p><p>“That's not the important part.” Jon smiles, tilting his head back to look up at the sky. “I think mine is blue today.”</p><p><br/>
<br/>
</p><p>“So,” he says, and Damian groans.</p><p>“Do you have a favorite food?”</p><p>“No.”</p><p>“Animal?”</p><p>“They all disgust me equally.”</p><p>“I like cats,” Jon says. “How can you not like cats?”</p><p><br/>
<br/>
</p><p>He doesn’t see Damian for another week and a half. His birthday falls on a Tuesday, and his class sings “Happy Birthday,” awkward and embarrassing, and his dad takes them home for Grandma’s pie.</p><p>Wednesday, he hears someone following him on the way to school. The slightest scuff of footfalls, the barest breath, the steady <em>thump thump thump</em> of a heartbeat. For a moment, he’s terrified.</p><p>Then he turns a corner and has a reason to look up, just subtly, and he lets himself see, <em>x-ray vision</em> kind of see, and the figure is small. Smaller than him.</p><p>He grins, ducking his head back down, and lets Damian follow him to school.</p><p>When he gets there, he stays back at the edge of the courtyard, leaning against a wall, and watches the other kids mess around. </p><p>“So…” he starts, and Damian <em>hisses</em>.</p><p>He grins.</p><p>A moment later, a box comes flying towards him, faster than he should be able to catch, but he’s got superpowers, so it’s fine. He catches it one-handed, and it fits easily into his palm. The box is small, and wooden, and he pretends to be so fascinated by it he doesn’t notice Damian slipping away.</p><p>There’s a set of fine, silver hinges on one seam, and so he runs his fingers along the opposite ones, feeling open the latch. It clicks quietly, and the lid flips open.</p><p>Inside, there’s a flash drive. Jon grins, tipping it out into his palm. He’s got a puzzle to solve.</p><p><br/>
<br/>
</p><p>He’s barely able to sit still until lunch, twitchy and vibrating, feet tapping and fingers twisting pencils—he breaks three.</p><p>Finally, the bell rings and he races to the computer lab, racing past Mr. T. with a shouted hello, skidding into the closest seat fast enough it rocks underneath him. He pulls the flash drive out of his pocket and slides it in nearly before the computer is finished turning on.</p><p>It shows up as “for kent.” and Jon grins like a goofball at it.</p><p>The file itself is a Word Document (and, honestly, it’s stupid and old-school and exactly what Damian would use. Of course it is). All that’s on it is two strings of numbers, and Jon knows he’s gonna <em>get</em> it.</p><p><br/>
<br/>
</p><p>The first one is binary for hexadecimal for “Happy birthday.” The second is a set of coordinates, he’s pretty sure. They match up to a spot in New Mexico, just outside of the city of Las Cruces.</p><p>He flies out after school, shooting a text to his mom to explain where he’s gone. </p><p>It doesn’t take long to figure out he’s in the right place, given the dog-whistle that starts ringing in his ears when he starts getting closer. Whatever it is is buried, and he comes down next to the pile of overturned dirt, head aching with the high-pitched tone playing on and on and on.</p><p>So he pulls it out and rips it open, and the sound stops, thank G-d.</p><p>There are a pair of tickets inside, and a note. It reads, plainly, <em>For Kent, should you wish to bring your mother</em>. <em> —Damian.</em> He isn’t exactly sure why Damian thinks his mom would be interested in an exhibit about lawmen in Las Cruces during the Old West, but he figures there’s some reason.</p><p>He tucks the tickets into his pocket, and heads into town, pulling out his phone to find the museum.</p><p><br/>
<br/>
</p><p>The central figure in the exhibit is a vigilante called <em>El Diablo</em>, and, okay, he’s actually super cool. It’s barely over when his phone chimes—which, super weird, because it should be on silent—with a new email. Sender blocked. He didn't even know emails could <em>do</em> that.</p><p>Inside is an old-fashioned photograph, all sepia tones, of a man Damian names as Lazarus Lane, AKA El Diablo. </p><p><em>Okay</em>, Jon thinks, <em>this is getting really cool</em>.</p><p>Below is another string of numbers.</p><p><br/>
<br/>
</p><p>He gives the spare ticket to his dad, and forwards him the email too, because that sounds like the kind of thing the League would totally be able to check, and if it’s true, he thinks his mom <em> would</em> like it.</p><p>The email leads him to an arcade in Los Angeles, and from there another one sends him to a comic book store in Gotham City, and from there to a dog shelter in St. Paul. The final email doesn’t have numbers, but a PO Box listed, right there with no codes, one right in Metropolis.</p><p>He walks in, and the guy behind the counter says, “Hey kid, you here for 34?”</p><p>“Yeah,” Jon says, smiling awkwardly at him.</p><p>“The other kid came in earlier,” the guy explains, passing the key to him.</p><p>Inside, there’s an envelope, and Jon shoves it in his pocket and hands back the key. </p><p>“Thanks,” he says, and walks away.</p><p><br/>
<br/>
</p><p><em>Kent</em>, it reads, <em>Well done. Happy birthday, and good luck. Goodbye, Damian.</em></p><p>Jon doesn’t get it.</p><p>And then he does.</p><p><br/>
<br/>
</p><p>The next time he sees Damian, he’s in Hong Kong. Then London. Then San Francisco, New Delhi, Cairo, Moscow, Mexico City.</p><p>It’s not the same.</p><p>It goes like this:</p><p>Damian has a contract. Jon finds out about it. Jon keeps Damian from committing murder and saves his would-be victim. Damian successfully flees before Jon can say a word.</p><p>It’s not <em>on purpose</em>, the him finding out. Not on Damian’s end. He convinced his dad to let him into a few Justice League files unsupervised one time, and now he knows where to keep his ears open.</p><p>He knows it’s not all the contracts, or there’d be Kryptonite in his sandwiches by now. But that’s how it works.</p><p><br/>
<br/>
</p><p>The next time Damian sees him, it’s been exactly seven months since they met.</p><p>He’s a shadow again, just on Jon’s trail as he heads to school. </p><p>“I’m not stopping,” he says, at his usual speaking volume. “You’re my friend.”</p><p>“You need to,” Damian replies, so quiet he’s barely above the wind. “I’m an assassin, I assassinate people.”</p><p>“You’re my friend,” Jon tells him, stopping to wait for the crosswalk to change. “Not a murderer.”</p><p>“I am, Kent, and I always will be,” Damian says, like a warning. Then, more gentle, more <em>afraid</em>, “This is going to end badly. You need to let go.”</p><p>“Good people get involved,” Jon says, something hot creeping up his neck, almost like anger but not quite. “I’m going to help you.”</p><p>Damian’s heart rate spikes, and he stops breathing, freezing. Jon grits his teeth, and steps into the street. When he gets to the other side, Damian is gone.</p><p><br/>
<br/>
</p><p>Seven months and ten days after they first met, Jon gets a note taped to his locker. <em> Some people don’t need help, Kent</em>, is all it says, and it’s in Damian’s handwriting—it’s got the tiny loop at the top of the <em>K</em> and the <em>S</em> slants in the same sharp way and the <em>p’</em>s curl back—but there’s something <em>wrong</em> about it, and he doesn’t know what.</p><p>He peels it up carefully, and swallows at the picture beneath it: Damian, face blank, sword straight through a man’s chest. He lets go of the note, suddenly feeling like he’s gonna puke.</p><p>This isn’t right, this isn’t Damian. Damian is blunt, and harsh, and sometimes mean, but that isn’t—he doesn’t do things just to <em>hurt</em>, not like that. He rips the note and the photo down off his locker and shoves them in his locker and swallows back the feeling until he can trust himself not to break the locker door when he touches it.</p><p><br/>
<br/>
</p><p>He hears nothing at all about <em>Ibn al Xu’ffasch</em> when he listens for the next week, and that’s how Jon knows he’s right. He knows Damian didn’t do that, or didn’t <em>want</em> to, because he wouldn’t stop killing people to tell Jon he wanted to kill people.</p><p>Jon is pretty sure whoever’s pulling the strings at the League of Assassins is kind of an idiot.</p><p>Except, problem: he doesn’t know where Damian is, and all he’s got to figure it out is listening, but no one’s <em> talking </em>.</p><p>Now, in theory, this is the part where he’d ask for help. Except for the part where the person you ask for help with detective work is Batman, or <em>maybe</em> Robin, but Jon’s pretty sure Damian would murder him for doing that, and Robin’s been giving him weird looks since he asked what Ibn al Xu’ffasch meant.</p><p>Or, like, Oracle, but she’s terrifying.</p><p>So all he’s got left is listening, and hoping.</p><p><br/>
<br/>
</p><p>The job is in Metropolis, this time.</p><p>Jon knows this city and he knows Damian, and that means he floats down behind him quietly, and doesn’t say a word.</p><p>“Kent,” Damian says. His voice is choked and tight.</p><p>“Hey,” Jon says, feeling like something’s ending, hoping something's starting. He walks up next to Damian and pushes himself up onto the barrier at the edge of the roof. The sunset is cutting across the Metropolis skyline, dyeing it blood red.</p><p>“Aren’t you going to stop me?” Damian asks. He hasn’t drawn back from his sniper’s scope.</p><p>“No,” Jon maybe-lies, and starts kicking his feet, careful not to hit the barrier so he doesn’t break it. “Sunset’s nice tonight.”</p><p>“You’re letting go,” Damian says, softly. Jon flicks his eyes over him, faster than Damian could process. His grip on the rifle is white-knuckled.</p><p>“Nah,” Jon says. He swallows, because this is the hard part. “Someone told me recently that some people don’t need help. They were wrong.”</p><p>Damian chokes, so soft that Jon wouldn’t have heard it if he was human.</p><p>“But there are some things people don’t need help with,” he finishes. “You don’t need help with this. You’re not a murderer, Damian.”</p><p>“And then what?” Damian asks. His voice is tighter, taut like a string about to snap. “I let the League hunt me down? There’s no walking away from this, Kent.”</p><p>“Then,” Jon says, watching a woman through an office window so he won’t look at Damian, “you let me help.”</p><p><br/>
<br/>
</p><p>Damian puts down the gun.</p><p><br/>
<br/>
</p><p>“So,” Jon’s mom asks, over the rim of her coffee cup, “your family are all assassins?”</p><p>“My mother and grandfather,” Damian corrects. “They raised me.”</p><p>His eyes flick to Jon, like there’s something he’s debating over saying, but whatever it is, he doesn’t say it.</p><p>“Okay.” Jon’s mom sighs, and sets down her mug. “I’m gonna guess Jon showed you around last night?”</p><p>Damian nods. “Your son has been… very <em>welcoming</em>.”</p><p>She raises her eyebrows, an ‘is this kid for real’ kind of skepticism crossing her face, and, yeah, Mom, Jon too. “Well, I’m going to assume you can take care of yourselves for now, so we’ll put off the part where we have a <em>Talk</em> about this until tonight, when Jon’s dad is home. Offices are off-limits, kitchen is fair game, cool?”</p><p>Jon nods, even though it wasn’t directed at him. He’s got the fear of Capital Letters still driving his actions.</p><p>“Okay,” his mom says again, and that’s the end of that.</p><p>She goes to work, and Jon gets into his school clothes, and Damian is by the door, Jon’s backpack hanging off the end of his index finger.</p><p>“Your mother was… surprisingly calm,” he says, as they watch the elevator doors close.</p><p>Jon shrugs, watching Damian’s expression in his distorted reflection. “She’s married to Superman. <em>Weird</em> comes with the territory.”</p><p>“Tt.” Damian eyes him. “She is <em>your</em> mother.”</p><p>“Hey!” Jon cries, and Daman’s lips twist into a smirk because he’s a <em>jerk</em>, and then they’re off to the races.</p><p><br/>
<br/>
</p><p>Damian disappears when the first bell rings, and reappears as Jon sits down for lunch, stealing half of his sandwich.</p><p>“Jerk,” Jon mutters, stuffing his mouth with his sandwich so Damian can’t take any more.</p><p>“Thank you, Jonathan,” Damian replies, and Jon nearly chokes.</p><p>“I—uh, you’re welcome?” he manages, disbelieving.</p><p>Damian takes a bite, a satisfied smirk playing on his lips, and Jon smiles right back at him, happiness piling up in his chest because Damian just used his <em>name</em>.</p><p>“Um,” says Georgia, and Jon remembers that they're in the middle of a crowded cafeteria full of civilians and also his totally non-superhero friends who would not accept “ninja-slash-assassin” without comment. She’s staring at them, eyes wide, and he figures the best route here is to act like it’s normal.</p><p>“This is Damian,” he tells her, gesturing lightly, even though his hands are completely under the table and it kind of makes him feel stupid now that he thinks about it.</p><p>“You’re grinning like a fool,” Damian says, but it barely even sounds like he was <em>trying</em> to be cutting and Jon knows he really means <em>I’m happy too</em>, so it’s not really that bad.</p><p>“Um,” says Georgia, and Jon smiles at her a little wider. “Cool.”</p><p>Which is a clear acceptance, so he takes another bite of his sandwich.</p><p><br/>
<br/>
</p><p>Damian refuses to join in at recess. Which is totally lame, but he’s also not in the school uniform, so it kind of makes sense.</p><p><br/>
<br/>
</p><p>“You,” Damian tells him, dropping out of the tree outside the gates, “deserve a better education.”</p><p>Jon shrugs, ignoring the fact that Alex is quietly shrieking <em> that kid just fell out of a tree! </em> “Best money can buy.”</p><p>“Tt,” Damian replies. “By the time I was your age, I had three doctorates and had earned a dozen more.”</p><p>Jon gives him a side-eye for that, but decides to let it slide in favor of crossing the parking lot without anyone smashing their car into him and therefore wrecking it. Which had happened to Kon one time, so it was definitely an actual thing that <em>could</em> happen.</p><p>“So, were you listening in or something?” he asks, when they reach the other side.</p><p>“Lip-reading,” Damian corrects, rolling his eyes. “It wasn’t as though I had time to plant bugs, given that <em>you</em> barely passed for punctual.”</p><p>“Hey!” Jon pokes him in the side, as lightly as he can. “That was your fault. I’m usually way early.”</p><p>Damian looks back at him skeptically, and Jon glares as he turns to cut across the street.</p><p>“It’s true!” he insists. “I <em> like </em> my classmates; they’re fun to hang out with.”</p><p>Another skeptical expression.</p><p><br/>
<br/>
</p><p>Damian refuses to take or share Jon’s bed that night, instead laying down across the doorway.</p><p>Jon wakes up in the middle of the night and sits on his bed, watching Damian lie still. He looks like one of those dead kings, in movies, like King Arthur with his sword held flat on his chest, face finally at peace. He wonders what Damian dreams of.</p><p>(Sometimes, Jon dreams of storms, of a low voice cutting through the hurricane of the world.)</p><p><br/>
<br/>
</p><p>“I could introduce you to Batman, if you wanted,” Jon says, and Damian freezes.</p><p>He looks around like a hunted thing, but it’s a busy Metropolis street and not a single person can be bothered to notice some kid claiming to know Batman. All of them have already heard something weirder this morning, he’d bet.</p><p>“<em>Why</em>,” Damian hisses, “would you do that?”</p><p>Jon shrugs, hitching his backpack up higher. “If you wanted. My dad’s kinda his best friend, y’know.”</p><p>“<em>No</em>,” Damian says, voice still in that knife-edge hiss.</p><p><br/>
<br/>
</p><p>“I think he’d like you,” Jon tells him, passing over the second sandwich from his lunchbox.</p><p>“I,” Damian replies, ripping off the plastic wrap, “disagree.”</p><p>“Who?” Georgia asks.</p><p>“<em>No</em>,” Damian says.</p><p>“Geez,” she says, holding her hands up in a gesture of surrender. “Just asking.”</p><p><br/>
<br/>
</p><p>“So,” Jon asks, “what's your favorite color?”</p><p>Damian pauses, for a very long moment. “No,” he says, “not yet.”</p><p>“Okay,” Jon replies. “Whenever you’re ready.”</p><p><br/>
<br/>
</p><p>“What do you…” Damian pauses, struggling over the words in his mouth. “What do you <em> do</em>, as Superboy?”</p><p>“I help people,” Jon replies simply. </p><p>Damian frowns.</p><p>“<em>Why?</em>” he presses. </p><p>Jon shrugs. “Good people get involved.”</p><p>Damian’s frown deepens, and he turns away from Jon, looking at something he can’t see. A thousand-yard stare. </p><p>“I…” Whatever he was going to say, he doesn’t, sighing instead. “You’re only eleven,” he murmurs, “I shouldn’t expect you to have all the answers.”</p><p>“<em>You’re</em> only thirteen,” Jon tells him earnestly. “You can’t expect yourself to have all the answers.”</p><p>“No.” Damian’s lips quirk upwards, accepting it with more ease than Jon had expected. “I’m flying blind, now.” He looks at Jon, something very thoughtful still clinging to him, but more present now. “Thank you, Jonathan.”</p><p><br/>
<br/>
</p><p>Jon pretends not to notice when Damian corners his dad to interrogate him about ethics. It’s probably better he doesn’t intervene.</p><p><br/>
<br/>
</p><p>“What is Robin like?” Damian asks, on the way to school.</p><p>Jon shrugs. “Kinda nerdy. Doesn’t really like me much.”</p><p>His frown deepens.</p><p><br/>
<br/>
</p><p>“What do you know about Nightwing?”</p><p>“He’s pretty cool. Dad likes him a lot.”</p><p><br/>
<br/>
</p><p>“Have you ever met Batgirl?”</p><p>“One time she had a movie night with my cousin.”</p><p>“…which cousin?”</p><p>“I’ve only got one?”</p><p><br/>
<br/>
</p><p>“Blue,” Damian says, “white. Like streetlights on wet asphalt.”</p><p><br/>
<br/>
</p><p>Jon isn’t scared of Batman. He gets <em>why</em> people are, but he grew up with his dad making jokes about the cowl being on too tight and knowing that Batman is also <em>Bruce Wayne</em> and having no reason to be scared of him at all.</p><p>He doesn’t get why Damian is.</p><p>Batman picks up kids the way most people pick up spare change, to quote his mom. He’s not going to reject <em> his </em> kid.</p><p>“Do you want to meet him?” Jon asks. </p><p>“No,” Damian says, heart beating hummingbird-fast.</p><p><br/>
<br/>
</p><p>“Do you want to go out tonight?” Damian asks, leaning against the doorway, smirk playing on his lips in the way it does when he’s had a terrible, brilliant idea.</p><p>“I have patrol,” Jon replies warily.</p><p>“I meant that,” Damian says, and <em>oh</em>.</p><p>This is the start of something, and this is Damian taking control of it.</p><p><br/>
<br/>
</p><p>Their first crime is jay-walking. Their second is bike theft. Their third is… also jay-walking. It’s kinda awesome.</p><p><br/>
<br/>
</p><p>“I have a case for us,” Damian announces as Jon leaves school on Friday. He grins, sharp as a knife-edge. “Grab your cape.”</p><p>“Uh,” Jon says, “Kinda have to get home first?”</p><p>Damian rolls his eyes, falling into step beside him. “There’s been a string of armed robberies downtown, and I suspect I’ve found their base. Would you like to crack open a burglary ring or not?”</p><p>“They can wait the ten minutes it’s gonna take to walk home,” Jon replies firmly. “A secret identity is years of insurance.”</p><p>Damian rolls his eyes again.</p><p><br/>
<br/>
</p><p>“So,” Jon asks, pulling his shirt over his head, “where are we headed?”</p><p>“Follow my lead,” Damian says, because he’s a cocky jerk like that, and vaults out the window, because he's got the skills to back it up.</p><p>Jon flies low above the rooftops as Damian races across them, letting him lead the way to an office building.</p><p>“Fifteenth floor,” he mutters, and holds his arms out.</p><p>Jon swoops to loop his under them, lifting Damian up and up to the fifteenth floor, where he rocks his body back and forth to launch himself through a window missing its glass, instead of just, you know, letting Jon set him down. </p><p>He jerks his head farther in, and Jon follows him through the empty floor. It isn't anyone’s office yet, just an open floor full of those weird sheets of white plastic that blow in the nonexistent wind.</p><p>He’s cut a hole in the floor, and Jon sends a silent apology to the construction workers.</p><p>The floor below is also not an office yet. It is, however, in use.</p><p>Jon watches as one of the must-be-burglars draws and fires his pistol at the wall and with a sizzling <em>zing</em>, the glowing blue bullet leaves a new scorch mark in the mass of others.</p><p>“Damian,” he hisses. “This kind of tech—“</p><p>“Is exactly why we should get involved.” Damian smirks at him. “Or did you want to go running to daddy?”</p><p>Jon groans. “This isn’t gonna end well.”</p><p>And, you know what? Three hours, two explosions, and one car chase later, he’s pretty sure he was right.</p><p>The Justice Leaguers have mostly scattered, but his dad is still here, quietly muttering with Black Canary and Flash about what had caused the explosion.</p><p>And so is Batman.</p><p>Jon looks at Damian, and tips his head towards the extra shadow over by the burglars. “I could introduce you, if you want?”</p><p>With his scarf, it’s hard to read Damian’s expression, but his heart goes hummingbird-fast. </p><p>One second. Two seconds. Ten. Twenty. Thirty.</p><p>“I would like that.”</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Thank you for reading! Comments/kudos/etc always welcome</p></blockquote></div></div>
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